Describe How to Communicate with Babies

In this essay I am going to use examples from my placement to describe the different methods of communicating with infants and young children. It is important for the child care workers to understand how to communicate with babies and children under three in order to be able to interpret their needs and respond to them. Language is made up of four areas which include Phonology, semantics, grammar and pragmatics. In this essay I will give a description on each of these terms and look at the stages of communication with babies under three. This will include behaviourist and nativist theories, baby signing, communication activities and other alternative methods of communication. Phonology is the understanding and having the ability to pronounce speech sounds. Phonetics is the basis for phonological analysis. This is the production of all human speech sounds regardless of language. Phonology is the basis for further work in morphology, syntax, discourse, and orthography design. Analyzes is the sound patterns of a particular language by determining which phonetic sounds are significant and explaining how these sounds are interpreted by the native speaker. Semantics is to have and understanding of the meaning of words and how different words can be used as alternatives. Grammar is when a person can understand the order in which words fall to make grammatical sense. To have knowledge and understanding of the rules of grammar. Pragmatics can be described as the basic rules of communication. Whilst engaging in conversation, communicating effectively involves turn taking and starting and finishing conversations. A baby from birth to four weeks use a cry to gain attention for basic needs to be tended to, such as needing feed or feeling tired. As a secondary care giver within a day care setting usually become turned to the children’s different cries and can often tell by their cry what they need. At one to three months baby becomes more alert to sounds and voices around...